Temperature of color

[eocorsu]

Hy,

How about the importance of temperature of color in the leyering proces?

[vrkaya]

The umber layers warm it up and the dead cools it back down, but the visible umber through the dead creates an effect hard to describe. I'm sure the contrast in the color temps have something to do with it, but a good point to ask. This, I might point out, is just what it looks like to me

Regards, Ron

[saintlukesguild]

Hi Ed,

Temperature is extremely important in the layering method. That is why choice of ground tone is so important, because it sets the mid-tone, and where it shows uncovered in the finished work becomes a leading unifying element. Therefore a neutral tone - gray or ocher - for the ground is very user friendly if the scene is outdoors, or anywhere flooded with light. For a dark and dramatic scene a ground of umber or reddish brown (Rembrandt's favorite) is most suitable and efficient because strong light is restricted to relatively small areas. And that's just the ground. But the ground does in fact dominate all that follows in the glazing process to the end. This is a complicated subject much to large for this reply box. The theory of "optical gray" alone, which holds that any grayish tinge will take on shimmers of any warm color next to it (all shimmers the work of the retina instead of a paint brush) would fill 100 pages. However I will give you some immediate examples of Temperature, at the risk fo gross intrusion on your post, not to mention shameless self promotion.

I have a post on this forum tittled "Yellow." It is a copy of a Vermeer painting of a maid delivering a note to her mistress. I spent hours on the maids face and simply couldn't get it right..until I took a good look at her blouse and realized it had a dingy-cool cast. I WARMED the blouse with reddish/brown glazes and the maids face turned out to be right all along. This was a stunning learning experience of the impact of color temperature, and oh so immediate, and permanent. COLOR TEMPERATURE IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!

Another post is "Old Masters final exam." Two more Vermeer copies. "Woman in blue reading a letter" is 99% cool color. There is a lot of ocher, which is technically neutral , but it is also AC/DC in the sense it will swing towards warm or cool depending on the volume of the color surrounding it. In any case it is relaxing, which is said to be the emotional standard of all cool colors. "Woman with a peral necklace" is just the opposite. It is 99 and nine tenths % warm. Black is as cool as it gets, but all that black in the foreground - drapery, chair, table - is enriched with Venitian Red, and doesn't show up in digital camera transmission. Both women stand in the same room, both are locked in private space by chairs in the foreground, and both are so intensely preoccupied by their own activities they are oblivious to our spying on them. But we react differently to each. It has been observed that gallery crowds cease all chatter and approach Woman in blue in hushed reverence. There are many reasons for this, but cool color serenity is one of them. Woman (seventeen year old girl in my opinion) with peral neacklace is different. The warm color gives me an impulse to skip into the painting and give her a hug, and be lynched by the outraged mob.

COLOR TEMPERATURE IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT! From the ground up. Would you like to know what grounds Vermeer laid down for each painting? I will tell you, and I quote: (Woman in blue) "...a dark gray ground of chalk, umber, and lead white".... (Woman with peral necklace)..."an off white ground..an ocher layer over the ground might cover the entire canvas...this (ocher layer) is not covered (by subsequent layers) in parts of the figure and the window"... This information comes from chemical analysis of tiny chips taken at the edge of the stretchers, and microscopic examination.

This reply is much too long, but I hope it addresses your question and suggests paths for your own study of this very complicated subject.
And I hope you forgive me for bringing in my postings for illustrations. They seemed fitting to the subject, and of course immediately available.

Luke

[eocorsu]

Hy all,

saintlukesguild,

Thanks for your apeciation of this important principle.
Browsing the internet I found this interesting lik:
http://forum.portraitartist.com/show...=&threadid=281

best regards.